Ocean Prize (1972)

by Pattinson, James

  It must finally have become obvious to Trubshaw also. He gave a harsh laugh that sounded more than a little forced. “Okay, Chippie, ’ave it your way. You can put that knife back where you found it. I’ve finished with the kid. I reckon I’ve learnt ’im ’is lesson anyway.”

  He moved to a chair and sat down, took a tin of tobacco and papers from his pocket, and began to roll a cigarette.

  The tension eased. Men started talking again. Orwell slipped the knife back into its sheath and helped Wilson to his feet. The incident was ended.

  SIX

  ERRAND OF MERCY

  It was nine days since the Hopeful Enterprise had left Montreal, and in all that time the weather had been good, the engines had given no trouble, and to all appearances there had been nothing to worry even the most nervous of men. Yet, in spite of everything, there were worried men on board: no amount of good weather could ease Barling’s mind as the days passed and the moment drew inexorably nearer when the ship must be sold and the Company go into liquidation. Nor were the engines now Jonah Madden’s sole, or even chief, concern; for what did it matter about engines if this was to be the last voyage? And all things pointed to the probability that it was.

  The third worried man was Charlie Wilson, still gloomily anticipating inevitable arrest when the ship reached England. The effects of his beating-up bothered him less; the stiffness in his limbs, the bruises all over his body, the cuts on his face—all these were painful enough, but they were merely physical pains from which he would recover, and indeed recover quickly, since he had the resilience of youth on his side; but the other trouble was in a different class; from that there was no recovery; it simply got worse.

  Barling was not too preoccupied with his own affairs to notice Wilson’s injuries. Wilson’s face was not a pretty sight. Barling mentioned the fact to Loder and instructed the mate to find out what had happened.

  Loder made inquiries and brought back a report. “He tripped over on the deck and hit his face on a winch.”

  Barling stared hard at Loder. “Do you believe that?”

  “It’s what I was told.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  Loder shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “That boy looks to me as if he’d been in a fight.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I don’t like brawling in my ship.”

  A faint smile appeared to flicker across Loder’s blotchy face. It was gone in a moment, but Barling detected it and guessed the cause: no doubt Loder was thinking that it might not be his ship for much longer.

  “There’s another matter I’ve been meaning to speak to you about,” he said.

  “Yes?” Loder’s eyes seemed to mock him.

  “I think you’ve been spreading rumours.”

  “Rumours?”

  “One rumour. I think you know what it is.”

  “I’d like you to tell me.”

  Barling controlled his temper with some difficulty. “Did you or did you not tell Madden that the Company was going down the drain?”

  “By Company I take it you mean Barling and Calthorp?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well,” Loder said, “I can’t recall my exact words, but I wouldn’t say I told him that—not as a fact.”

  “You said you believed it was so.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then maybe I did. I’d hate to call Jonah a liar.”

  “What right have you to go around spreading tales of that sort?”

  “Oh, come now; let’s not call it spreading a tale.” Loder was smiling his crooked smile, which infuriated Barling. “Let’s just say I was voicing a legitimate suspicion.”

  “Legitimate?”

  “Oh, yes, I think it could be called that, all things considered. But of course, if there’s nothing to it, I’ll be only too pleased to tell Madden so. Just give me that assurance and I’ll be happy to pass it on. I’m sure it will relieve his mind a great deal.”

  Barling wanted to hit Loder; it took all his self-control to avoid doing so. But it would never have done to give vent to his anger in that way, though perhaps it was just what Loder would have liked. Loder had him in a corner and they both knew it. Without lying, he could not give any assurance that the Company was not going into liquidation, and he would not lower himself to giving the direct lie. As he had done in his interview with Madden, he resorted to a refusal to be drawn into any discussion of the affairs of Barling and Calthorp.

  “My advice to you is to wait and see.”

  Loder nodded, still with that infuriating smile on his lips. “I’ll do that. Yes, that’s just what I will do.”

  He turned away and left Barling to his none too pleasant thoughts.

  Wilson was avoiding Trubshaw as much as possible; he did not wish to be drawn into any more arguments with that hard, vicious man. One experience of that kind was enough to last for a very long time indeed. Not that Trubshaw himself showed any inclination to resume hostilities; he had had time to cool down, and probably considered that he had taught Wilson his lesson thoroughly enough. He grinned when he saw Wilson’s bruised and swollen face the next morning and indulged in some heavy banter.

  “Wotcher bin doin’, kid? ’Avin’ an argument with the wrong end of a mule?”

  Wilson did not answer.

  “Lost your tongue too? Well, ain’t that just too bad.” He gave Wilson a smack on the shoulder. “Never mind, kid; you’ll get over it.”

  Wilson knew that; he did not need Trubshaw’s assurance. But there was that other matter which Trubshaw knew nothing about; he would not get over that. Ever.

  Towards Orwell Trubshaw’s manner was different. He looked darkly at the carpenter but said nothing. Orwell had pulled a knife on him and had humiliated him in front of witnesses. That he would not forget. That he would never forgive.

  So, for nine days, apart from these outbreaks of friction between members of the ship’s company, all went smoothly for the Hopeful Enterprise. But on the morning of the tenth day the first hint of a change came up. It was a small hint, and could not have been described exactly as a warning of trouble, since it was something that was to be expected in that part of the ocean at that time of year. It was in fact a weather report picked up by Mr. Scotton, the radio officer, and it told of deteriorating conditions to the west moving rapidly eastward.

  Scotton took the report to Captain Barling, and Barling read it through impassively. It was nothing to worry about. The bad weather would almost certainly catch up with them, and life on board ship would be rather less comfortable as a result, but it would probably not last long, and in a few days at the most they would be in port, this last voyage ended, finished; everything finished. Bad weather was a very minor problem.

  “Thank you,” Barling said.

  Scotton left him and went back to the radio cabin, reflecting that Barling seemed to have aged a lot in the past few weeks. He wondered whether the Old Man was ill. Perhaps he had an ulcer. Scotton thought about it for a while and then forgot it. It was not really his concern.

  It was an hour later when he came up with another signal, and this one was considerably more interesting: it was in fact the first Mayday call that Scotton had ever intercepted.

  Barling was on the bridge with the third mate, a rather colourless young man named Stephen Walpole. Scotton was fairly bubbling over with excitement at the news he was bearing. A freighter called the India Star had sustained considerable damage from an explosion in the engine-room and was asking for assistance. The position given by the India Star put her about two hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of the Hopeful Enterprise.

  Captain Barling read the signal, and he remembered afterwards the faint tingling sensation that came over him; he remembered it as the first intimation that here was something of importance, something that might affect him profoundly, even though as yet there was no more than the smallest hint of why or how; indeed, scarcely
so much as a hint, but rather some inexplicable tremor of the nerves, a vibration, a vague stirring at the back of the mind.

  “Any other ships answering the call?”

  “There’s a Panamanian tanker, the Sargasso Queen, about fifty miles south of her. They expect to close with her in three to four hours.”

  “Any others?”

  “None closer than us, sir. At least, none answering.”

  Barling looked out through the wheelhouse window. The sky was overcast and there had been a little rain. The decks were wet and the tarpaulins on the hatches were stretched tight. He stared musingly at the bows of the ship cleaving through the water in a wash of foam, and he was thinking. Two hundred and fifty miles in the wrong direction. With the Sargasso Queen already on the way, was there any need to go? The Hopeful Enterprise could not hope to reach the stricken ship before the following day, and by that time all that was necessary would almost certainly have been done. It would be a wasted journey.

  And yet, would it? Again that tingling of the nerves, that feeling that there was something here, something of importance, something not to be ignored. Call it a hunch. Besides, was it not his duty to answer the call, even though another ship was ahead of him? The Sargasso Queen might break down, might never reach the India Star; at sea nothing could be taken for granted.

  He turned away from the window. “Make a signal to the India Star that we are on our way.”

  “Yes, sir,” Scotton answered with enthusiasm, and went away like a winged Mercury.

  Barling addressed the third mate. “Come into the chart-room. We’ve got a new course to plot.”

  Loder, when he became aware of the alteration in the ship’s course and the reason for it, received the news with slightly cynical amusement. So Barling was off on an errand of mercy, was he? And an errand which was likely to prove quite unnecessary. Well, let him have his last fling, let him play the game out to the end if that was what he wanted. Loder, for his part, took a detached view of the entire business. His future did not lie with the Hopeful Enterprise, and already he was making his own plans.

  Jonah Madden was again worrying about the engines. Barling had called for all possible speed, and it was not going to do them any good to stretch them to the limit. They needed nursing, and instead they were getting a hammering.

  “It’s just asking for trouble,” he complained to Barling.

  But Barling refused to listen. He had that hunch, and Madden could have as many qualms as he liked, it was not going to make any difference.

  “There’s a ship in distress, Chief.”

  Madden was gloomy. “We may be in distress ourselves before the night’s out.”

  To Charlie Wilson it was a reprieve; it meant that a few extra days must pass before that inevitable arrest, and even though those days might be spent in purgatory he clutched at them none the less eagerly for that. Perhaps some miracle would happen to get him off the hook.

  The rest of the crew on the whole accepted the situation with indifference, though a few of the younger men were mildly excited.

  To Trubshaw it meant simply money. “More days, more dollars. It’ll ’elp pay that fine. Wotcher say, Aussie?”

  Lawson agreed. “Suits me. What’s this India Star carrying?”

  “Machinery, so I ’eard.”

  “She could sink easy then.”

  “She could sink afore we even get near ’er. Depends ’ow bad the damage is.”

  “Maybe we’ll be getting passengers.”

  “Not likely,” Trubshaw said. “By the time we get there in this old crate they’ll all ’ave bin took off. Always supposin’ they decide to abandon ’er, which ain’t by any means certain.”

  During the day more information concerning the India Star was picked up by Scotton and gradually made its way, sometimes in rather garbled form, round the ship. It appeared that the explosion had been very severe; three men had been killed and two others injured; a fire had started, and the vessel had developed a slight list. The Sargasso Queen was making about fifteen knots and could be expected to arrive on the scene well before nightfall. Two other ships had answered the distress signal, but they were more than a day’s steaming away. For all practical purposes, and barring accidents, the Sargasso Queen had the rescue operation to herself.

  “We’re wasting our time,” Loder remarked to Madden. “You’re straining your engines just for the Old Man’s whim. We might as well turn about and head for home.”

  “You think so?” Madden’s troubled eyes searched Loder’s face. “You really think that?”

  “It stands to reason,” Loder said.

  But Barling was not going by reason. There was that hunch. He continued to press Madden for all possible speed, ignoring all the chief engineer’s prophecies of mechanical doom. The Hopeful Enterprise continued on her southwesterly course and the weather became progressively worse.

  In the middle of the afternoon news came through that the Sargasso Queen had reached the India Star and was taking off all survivors. The two other ships that had been heading for the scene of the disaster concluded that their help would not be needed and reported that they were resuming their normal courses. Everyone on board the Hopeful Enterprise, on hearing this news, assumed that their ship would do the same. Indeed, Mr. Thompson, the second mate, who was on watch at the time, took it so much for granted that he merely consulted Barling as a matter of form.

  “You’ll be calling it off now, sir?”

  “No,” Barling said. “Not yet.”

  Mr. Thompson was a stolid, thoroughly unimaginative man who took things much as they came and seldom showed the least trace of surprise even at the most unusual occurrence. In this instance, however, he made an exception, and his eyebrows, which in normal circumstances might have been regarded almost as fixtures, rose just a shade.

  “Not yet?”

  “That is what I said.”

  Mr. Thompson wished to get it quite clear in his mind so that there could be no possibility of a mistake. “You mean we are to continue on the same course, sir?”

  “That is so. Have you any objection?”

  “No,” Thompson said. “I’ve no objection.”

  “Very well then.”

  Barling went down from the bridge and left Mr. Thompson to puzzle over this strange decision on the part of his captain. He had still found no adequate solution to the mystery when the mate relieved him for the first dog watch. Mr. Loder listened with an enigmatic expression as Thompson informed him that they were still on the same course, still heading in the direction of the crippled India Star, even though all the survivors had been taken on board the Sargasso Queen.

  “I don’t understand it,” Thompson concluded. “Where’s the point?”

  “Perhaps you ought to ask the Old Man that.”

  “I could save my breath. Don’t you have any theory?”

  If Loder had, he was not disclosing it. “Ours not to reason why, Tommy. If that’s how the man wants it, that’s the way it’s got to be.”

  “It’s damned funny all the same.”

  “Well then, let’s just have our laugh, shall we?”

  Thompson stared at Loder and took note of the faint smile twisting the mate’s thin lips. He had no more idea of what was passing in Loder’s mind than he had of what was in Barling’s. Sometimes he suspected that both of them were just a little way round the bend. And that was putting it mildly. But it was no business of his.

  As he left the bridge he noticed that the wind was strengthening. The glass was beginning to fall.

  An hour later Scotton picked up another signal from the Sargasso Queen to the effect that she was leaving the India Star and proceeding with all speed towards Southampton. One of the injured men was in a critical condition and needed to be taken to hospital with the least possible delay.

  Barling questioned Scotton closely. “Any report on the condition of the India Star?”

  “Only that she’s afloat and that the fire is still bur
ning, sir.”

  “I see.”

  Scotton looked at Barling, puzzled as much as Thompson had been. “We’re still going there?”

  “Yes,” Barling said, “we’re still going there.”

  “I don’t understand, sir. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “Isn’t there? Well, let’s just say I’m curious. Now that we’ve come so far I’d hate not to take a look at the ship.”

  It sounded crazy to Scotton, but he did not say so. Another hundred and fifty miles or so of steaming, with the weather getting worse, just to see a derelict ship. It simply didn’t make sense.

  “We should be there early tomorrow,” Barling said; and Scotton noticed that he sounded quite cheerful, as though he were only with difficulty suppressing wild excitement. “Oh, and Sparks, there is no need to report our position. For the present, in fact, I think it would be best if we maintained complete radio silence. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Scotton said, and failed to understand in the least.

  Throughout the night the Hopeful Enterprise steamed steadily towards the last reported position of the India Star. Barling was no longer pressing Madden to get the last ounce of power out of the engines; now that the survivors had been taken off there was not the same urgency. Nevertheless, he slept little; that scarcely repressed excitement kept him wakeful, and he made frequent visits to the bridge to confer with the officer of the watch. He could hardly wait for morning to come, for daylight would reveal whether or not he had committed himself and his ship to nothing more than a wild goose chase.

  The first hints of dawn came in the mate’s watch: a pale, cold light creeping up from the eastern horizon and revealing a slate-grey sea touched here and there with splashes of white where the wind flicked the wave-crests into spume. The Hopeful Enterprise was rolling a little, and Mr. Loder, peering through the wheelhouse window, could see the foremast swaying first to one side and then the other. A few feet away from him Able Seaman Trubshaw stood with his hands on the wheel, staring fixedly at the glowing binnacle, and with long-acquired skill keeping the ship on the desired course.